The Lexington St. Neighborhood

Eva Reissner Ewing

March 20, 1987

Mrs. Eva Reissner Ewing
3590 San Pasqual
Pasadena, CA 91107
818-796-419

Dearest Eva,

In the midst of the 25th Reunion flurry from Governor Dummer Academy, I was led to an old box of letters sent to me by my mother several years ago when she sold the house on School Street in Weston. Dog-eared and faded clippings from the Town Crier, love letters with 4-cent stamps from girls I can't remember, and my college board scores -- it was all there.

Being somewhat maudlin by nature and also being in a reasonable state of shock at age 42 and about to have my first child (Elizabeth Hunter Vaughan, due mid-August), I wandered through my past, picking at memories as if I were sampling cakes, tarts, and other sweets from a dessert trolly brought forward toward the end of a repast...

There, among all the oddments, was a carefully hand-lettered invitation in real ink pen:

You are cordially invited to the
Senior Class Dance
Saturday, April 28, 1962
8:30 O'clock

R.S.V.P.
Dinner 7:00
Semi-Formal
Paula Hayden
Beaver Country Day School
Chestnut Hill 67, Mass.

It was certainly worth saving this because in a flash I was transported. I could taste, see, and touch those times again. Motorcycles, cellos and clarinets, debutante balls, maple trees blooming in May, and the dreams of vibrant and alive youths as they learned the rules of the game... Boy, they were good years!

Better luck! There was actually a note from you in your young lady script, written in December, 1961, and addressed from Dogwood Road. It said the kindest things (I'm sure you haven't changed), and opened a little window into that wintertime:

Dear Tay,

Your ears must be ringing. Today Joan Hugenberger told me how impressed her brother Gordon was with your musicianship. He's awfully nice, isn't he (not only because he appreciates you). Also, a few days ago I was sorting old letters, and I said to myself, "What fun Tay's letters are," especially the ones from the infirmary and the forget-me-not meadow."

I was sorry not to have seen you over Thanksgiving. I talked to your mother when Carter was in Mass. Eye and Ear and heard you were at the Sub-Deb from some of my classmates. Do I detect a change in Tay's choice of pastimes? I hope you'll never get too sophisticated to make mobiles and teach little neighborhood girls to ski.

Everything's going pretty smoothly this year for me. I haven't yet gotten really panicky about colleges. If I had, I'd be sutdying right now. I saw Swarthmore and liked it a lot. How about you?

I'm learning about as much Dutch as you once did French. Only difference is, I'm learning mine phonetically, and using it orally, so I can't use the dictionary.

On Thanksgiving I learned the twist and the Lumumba Cha-Cha from an A.F.S. student from Uganda who was staying at Frank Ross's. For better or worse, Mummy and Daddy forbade me to do the former at the Senior Sociable.

Like the proverbial Egyptian mummy, I feel pressed for time. So, so long.

s/Eva

It's been a long time, indeed.

I am so glad that your mom and dad are doing well. Your dad sounded robust and witty over the phone this morning, and your mom was at the golf course! I tried your new number in Pasadena, but there was no answer; so I decided just to roll right into this letter...

I married Karen Wulffraat (there's some Dutch for you) in 1983. She is now thirty-four and is in management with Sea-Land, the big container shipping company, in Oakland. We bought a rather large house in the hills behind Oakland and Berkeley (very yuppie), and I have done extensive remodeling and expansion during spare time by way of hobby and also for some significant equity improvement.

I started a high-tech consulting firm several years ago, and we specialize in the design of industrial robots and the writing of control software (mostly in the MS/DOS environment in C, Fortran, and sometimes even Basic). But we will do anything that is interesting and keeps the cash flow flowing. So far, we have done quite well by staying just a step or so ahead of our clients.

My office is at home (we use modems and telecommunicate among the firm's principals and programmers, who work at home also). I can boast of some eight computers in the house, ranging from old 6502 Atari-types through C/PM and into the world of 8086 IBMs. We also run several cad systems here, and have bunches of ancillary support equipment. And we recently began working with voice systems for two of our clients, so there are occasional wierd sounds wafting through the house...

We are thinking about an au pair situation after the baby is born. I'm sure I wouldn't get any work done with Karen at work and me warming formula every three hours... Tricky decisions. Anyway, you are right about mobiles and skiing: I am working up a 1/12th scale doll house, a wooden crib, and a firey-eyed rocking horse on the cad system and will generate full-sized building plans so I can put them together in the workshop.

My parents are well, although my mother broke her hip two weeks ago while riding a bicycle (that's right, a bicycle) in Maryland. She tried to put the brakes on by back-peddaling, but the brakes were on the handles (big difference between balloon-tired Schwinns and Italian 10-speeds). She's now recovering with relatives in Philadelphia. My brother Chris married a Peruvian psychiatrist named Carmen in January (his first). My brother Todd has been very ill for some six years with a fully-disabling case of paranoid schizophrenia, and moves in a hallucinatory daze from one institution to half-way houses to other institutions in the Bay Area here. With all the psychiatrists around, you'd think we could do something. Been very frustrating and also seems hopeless. My half-sister Jennifer (now 22) is in England and riding show horses on the international equestrian circuit. We visited her two weeks ago on a last fling to Europe before the baby comes. My half-brother Richard (23) is finishing a double degree in Biology and Music at UC Santa Cruz and is a very accomplished cellist. I visited Dagmar last week in Ft. Lauderdale, and she is fine (we are the best of friends and maintain a brother-sister sort of closeness -- she and Karen were born on the same day; she actually recalled our visit to the Owens Valley many years ago as we reminiced). Debbie Smith, who traveled from San Francisco to Rhode Island with me on the Great Bear (you met her while we were in San Diego working on Intrepid) finished her Ph.D. at Scripps and is now doing post-doc work at MIT/Woods Hole. We are not in touch, sadly, and I feel that seven years of my life are without a touchstone. I travel so much that I was in the top 1.5% of American Airline's revenue passenger roster (and they have sent me all sorts of free trips and perks to keep me there instead of with United or TWA. I buy the cheapest coach ticket and still ride first class... a guy can get used to that real quick. Dangerous!).

Karen and I are going the the GDA 25th Reunion on June 12-14th. Have fun at the Beaver reunion! [I always felt a strange sympathy with you about schools. "Beaver" Academy and Governor "Dummer" Academy seemed unfortunate names, albeit not a reflection on educational quality...].

Please give Marty and your family our very best regards. I'd sure like to see you guys again sometime. It's been well over 13 years, as I can't remember you having kids the last time we visited. If you get to the Bay Area, we have plenty of spare rooms and are but 20 minutes from downtown San Francisco and about 5 minutes from the Berkeley campus.

Lot's of catching up to do!

Love as always,

Tay

P.S. Your dad asked that I write them a letter with all the latest news. I'm going to take the lazy way out and just copy this to them... I'm sure you no longer need worry about dancing the Lumumba, so no cats are out of the bag... I guess I'll also slip in a resume so that you can peek into my activities over the last years. God, it's been a long time!